With the new year well under way, we’re eager to share some exciting developments on the horizon. In addition to fresh capital to deploy, 2018 brought us four new portfolio companies, numerous Laconia family get-togethers, and a brand new office (come visit!). Whether it’s on the fundraising, operations, or business development front, we look forward to continuing to open doors for our founders as our ecosystem grows.

As operators and entrepreneurs ourselves, we know that building an enduring company is no small feat. Beyond providing funding, we are focusing our efforts on increasing our accessibility, leveraging our experience, and building a supportive community to help you navigate the challenges of startup life. As always, we are all ears if anyone needs feedback or a shoulder to complain on.

In working with early stage companies for 9+ years now, we have found that revenue and operational guidance are the lifelines for early stage companies. As a result, we are doubling down on supporting companies with sales acceleration and operational execution. To bolster these efforts, we have invested in a number of tools that will enable us to better leverage our existing relationships, further expand our networks, and operationalize our business development initiatives as “Executives in Residence” for founders.

To increase our bandwidth on operations, we are excited to announce some team changes. Geri Kirilova’s promotion to Principal will allow her to take on a more investing-centric role and remain more readily available to our founders. As we continue to strengthen and build a support network, we’re also growing the Laconia family, bringing on Garry Duncan as our Managing Director of Market Development and Padma Rao as our Head of Community.

Garry brings a unique breadth of experience across capital markets, corporate banking, and institutional asset management. At Laconia, Garry will help build deep institutional relationships that support both Laconia and our portfolio companies.

With a background in business development and strategic communications in international development and tech, Padma will be developing Laconia’s communication and engagement infrastructure to meet our portfolio companies’ needs.

These team changes will provide us with additional bandwidth to help founders navigate the ups and downs of their entrepreneurial journeys, enabling us to increase our own “partner availability” and launch new events, content series, and community initiatives - more to come soon.

Though it’s a new year, our investment focus remains the same: pre-Series A b2b software companies headquartered in Northeast major markets. Within b2b, we are sector-agnostic, with a particular focus on companies that make existing markets or workflows more efficient. If you are a founder, investor, or industry executive working on the digitization of legacy industries, please don’t hesitate to reach out!